Are Scenarios The New Heroics?

It seems as if they're trying to make "scenarios" the new heroics. I honestly don't even know how many heroics are in MoP without thinking about it. They're adding four new scenarios and now introducing "Heroic" scenarios so people who are complaining about LFR Loot can get loot via these heroic scenarios.

Maybe I'm just weird but I enjoyed when new loot adequate heroics would come out, it was fun farming them. Plus, at least in a 5 man heroic for new gear, 1/3 of your DPS isn't AFK :\ as it's pretty noticeable if someone is AFK in a 5 man.

Whole idea of heroic dungeons has already failed. It was awesome back in TBC and WoTLK, but now because of LFD Blizzard has to make sure everyone can clear a heroic, so heroics are as easy as normal instances.

Maybe with heroic scenarios they'll try to re-introduce difficulty that pre-LFD heroics used to have.

The worst part is, it's going to be so much easier than LFR because you don't really need heals for any of the scenarios. Unless they change the queue system to always include one healer, one tank and one DPS which would horrendously increase the waiting times, I don't see how they'd make it difficult enough to where LFR loot is justified.

The worst part is, it's going to be so much easier than LFR because you don't really need heals for any of the scenarios. Unless they change the queue system to always include one healer, one tank and one DPS which would horrendously increase the waiting times, I don't see how they'd make it difficult enough to where LFR loot is justified.

AKA: I think they're just going to change their name to loot pinata.

No.

They're not getting rid of 5 mans.

They've just decided to tarry away from their typical "3 dungeons at the end of the expansion" plan.

You guys are overreacting.

Scenarios are a nice device that make running instanced content FASTER, and the fact they're adding in a more difficult option for them further shows them trying to balance out the Hardcore and Casual crowd.

They've just decided to tarry away from their typical "3 dungeons at the end of the expansion" plan.

You guys are overreacting.

Scenarios are a nice device that make running instanced content FASTER, and the fact they're adding in a more difficult option for them further shows them trying to balance out the Hardcore and Casual crowd.

I honestly believe it's just going to be a slight increase of difficulty so that people can get LFR Loot.

What change I would REALLY like to see is bonus rolls for performance in Raids. The bad players doing 20-40k DPS have a next to no chance to receive a thing ( even gold )

Whole idea of heroic dungeons has already failed. It was awesome back in TBC and WoTLK, but now because of LFD Blizzard has to make sure everyone can clear a heroic, so heroics are as easy as normal instances.

Maybe with heroic scenarios they'll try to re-introduce difficulty that pre-LFD heroics used to have.

As if those heroic scenarios will not be accessible via the random tool.

That's overstating it by quite a bit. Burning Crusade launched with a ton of instances and then that was basically it for the expansion except for Magister's Terrace in 2.4. So there's some precedent for not having a lot of new dungeons throughout an expansion.

---------- Post added 2013-03-23 at 09:32 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Tokru

As if those heroic scenarios will not be accessible via the random tool.

Theoretically if you want to run scenarios with someone on your server it should be easier than ever: smaller group size with no dependencies on group composition.

Whole idea of heroic dungeons has already failed. It was awesome back in TBC and WoTLK, but now because of LFD Blizzard has to make sure everyone can clear a heroic, so heroics are as easy as normal instances.

Maybe with heroic scenarios they'll try to re-introduce difficulty that pre-LFD heroics used to have.

The difficulty's sort of bounced up and down on an expansion-by-expansion basis. Wrath heroics were by far the easiest (they were tuned about the same as MoP heroics, but they were mechanically far simpler), then towards the end of the expansion they added some slightly harder ones, and by Cataclysm we were at a pretty challenging level of heroic difficulty again. Then at the end of Cataclysm we were back to easy heroics, which continued on into MoP.

I think if anything this demonstrates that the playerbase is in need of both challenging, and easy dungeon content, seeing as there were always a lot of complaints from both sides of the spectrum when heroics were either too easy and too hard.
MoP is almost there with its challenge modes, but the relative lack of rewards and the logistical challenge of organising a group (it's not super hard, but it's not reliable if you're in a teeny casual guild like mine) is still a factor.

I'd love to have three tiers of difficulty for dungeons, like we have with raiding. It's probably too much of an investment in development time to expect it to happen, but we can always hope!
I think if we had an easy mode similar to what MoP heroics are like now, a normal mode roughly on the level of Cataclysm heroics, and a hard mode similar to TBC heroics, it'd be perfect. You could stick LFG on the first two and leave the hard mode for organised groups, and then maybe have a slightly (but not vastly) increased valour reward for higher difficulties, plus different cosmetic gear/achievements.

Heroics still have their place as a pre-raid gear up mechanic. Scenarios are just easier and less time-consuming to make during the course of an expansion (most of the time they just copy-paste locations, and don't make any new art for a scenario). LFR took the spot of the mid-expansion gear-up heroic (I know at least one player who decided not to come back to the game because it wouldn't be as easy to catch up as it used to be in Cata or Wrath).

I'm sure they'll release new heroics with the next expansion, as well as new scenarios and raids.

On a side note: Challenge modes are supposed to be the new more difficult version of a dungeon (formerly called Heroic). They can't be overgeared, often have new mechanics, and are tuned to be harder than the current 'heroics' and to top it all off they're timed (but they're on the side of the gear treadmill, to allow LFD room to breathe). Of course making players walk to the dungeons and the lack of short-term rewards are major pitfalls of this ever being a very popular feature (on the other hand, it does add to the prestige of the long-term rewards).

There were no problems with tanks and heals back in WotLK times. Problems started in Cata, when devs had made it much more harder trying to make it "more fun". It caused speccing of many players into DPS and very painfull problems with queue times at the end of Cata. Blizzard haven't solved this problem and now they're trying to aviod it by forcing everybody into solo-content like dailies and scenarios. It causes even more problems with tanks and heals cuz everybody is forced to have DPS spec now. As main spec most likely. And now Blizzard are slowly shifting to GW2 PVE model - i.e. PVE model without tanks and heals. They can't just say - we want to get rid of classic PVE, just because many players will quit this game then. But they'll do it: they are already getting rid of 5ppls and heroic scenarios with LFR level loot should make us thinking, that they're trying to get rid of LFR too. And after that tank and heal roles will became useless and they will just delete them from game and switch to GW2 PVE model. But... You know... If I would like GW2 PVE model, I will play GW2. And I like classic Wow PVE. PVE with tanks and heals, with tactics, that taking the fact of tanks and heals existance into account. If classic PVE will be dead, then I will consider, that Wow will be dead too. I have already quited and this news are not bringing me closer to return back, you know.

I'd love to have three tiers of difficulty for dungeons, like we have with raiding. It's probably too much of an investment in development time to expect it to happen, but we can always hope!
I think if we had an easy mode similar to what MoP heroics are like now, a normal mode roughly on the level of Cataclysm heroics, and a hard mode similar to TBC heroics, it'd be perfect. You could stick LFG on the first two and leave the hard mode for organised groups, and then maybe have a slightly (but not vastly) increased valour reward for higher difficulties, plus different cosmetic gear/achievements.

You run into some issues with this though. They would have to make the normal mode drop better gear/valor to make it worth people's time. Otherwise no one would run it when the easy mode is faster and easier. Then you run into the issue of everyone now running the normal mode (even the bad players) because they want the better gear/valor and then people start complaining it is too hard. How do you solve this? You might say "well the bads just have to suck it up" but that isn't feasible from a game developers PoV.

The worst part is, it's going to be so much easier than LFR because you don't really need heals for any of the scenarios. Unless they change the queue system to always include one healer, one tank and one DPS which would horrendously increase the waiting times, I don't see how they'd make it difficult enough to where LFR loot is justified.

AKA: I think they're just going to change their name to loot pinata.

Unfortunately you're absolutely right.

Blizzard has changed the dungeons of 5 players by "heroic" scenarios, or what is the same, the same scenarios but counted twice: in normal mode and in heroic mode, thus magically there is more things to do!